POW camps in American, insider story
 

Well i knew my grandfather was in the US Army during WW2 and that he was a medic but i didnt know what he did. I only found out about 3 months ago, he served in a German POW camp in South Carolina during the war.
He was the camps medic and had two German doctors underhim. He was singled out for this assignment because he spoke German with a Bavarian Dialect and he knew German customs.
He was a Tech Sgt and worked in two camps during the war, both were in South Carolina. At first most of the German POWs were from the Afrika Korp, and were members of the German Army. But around 1944 more and more U-Boat crewmen were being sent to his camp. He often had long converstations with the sailors and quickly made friends with them. He remembers that alot of the younger enlisted men were very into the Nazi party and some were sent to POW camps in the midwest for "de-Nazivication".
I dont know if he still has contacts in germany. But if anyone would like to know more info, i will ask my grandfather when he migrates back to Boston from Florida.

good story EMT, When you see your grandfather again, ask him if he remembers any U-Boat stories the POW's told him..........

Ask if he remember any specifics of what u-boat crew he watched over as the medical technician. What camp was he station? This in invaluable information.

Well hes in Florida allong with the other oldies, hahaha. But seriously he was stationed in a camp about 30 miles west of Charlestown, SC and then he was transferred to a new POW camp like less then 5 miles for Charlestown, SC.

He did tell me how the U-boat crewmen thought that once they were captured by the US navy they would be shot. His understandings were that the U-Boats crews would rather surreander to Americans then to the British.
He did tell me that he talked to a XO of a u-boat and how the sub's captian wanted to go down with the ship and the rest of the crew. But the crew and the other officers took over control of the u-boat and handcuffed the captain, o how did he say it. hmmm it sounded like this , their u-boat was taking on water like a good irishman takes on whiskey.thats good ole'family rascism (family guy)

U-boat crews in general were treated very well in U.S. POW camps. I remember reading about the ones here in Texas where the guards would eat with the prisoners, earning the Germans respect. They worked, learning farming and butchering, working as a mechanic on the Army base vehicles, leatherworking and such. For the work they were paid coupons worth 80 cents a day and could spend it at a canteen for smokes, toiletries and 3 beers a week.

One good story I remember was that there were something like 250 books in German for the POWs to read at this camp donated by the YMCA. The POWs had so many of their work coupons left over that they put them all together and ended up donating $442.00 to the YMCA for the books and $353.07 to the International Red Cross.

Interesting stuff!

someone should start a thread with war histories:) (WW2)
told by their grandparents/other:up:
that would be really intresting

Then sticky the thread. I think most People on this Forum are hungry for this sort of information.

I have a true account I could contribute from an elderly Gentleman [81] with a sharper brain than mine but it involves a British Submarine and not a U-Boat.

yea:up:

Uboat - Brit sub whats the difference Kpt
Tell all mate
We are waiting

Kapt Munson,

Fire away..............lets hear it.:up::up::up:

Unfortunate these great stories are passing away everyday. Funny how most who where there just looked at it like a job and have moved passed it. Yet, we are very interested. I have my uncles first and last B-17 mission over Kiel from the State Dept of the US.

i wish i had any war story
all i have is that my grandfather stole a kar 98k from the road side (dunno where the german was) and ran away and proceeded to have a shooting contest with hes brother against a jacket.
the following evening the partisans came and asked for the rifle wich my grandfather had hidden under hes bed
and he was only 11-14:o

I have two Nazi Deutschmarks that my father was given as a small boy. It was from a German pow who, according to my father had been a clown before the war and was quite relieved to be out of it.
Unfortunatly that's all I know about it, but It's still nice to get them out ocasionally and think of their original owner.

About 20 miles south of me, in Marion Ohio, there was a WWII POW camp.
I know where it was and thats about all I know about it.

What about the Guantanamo POW ("war"?) camp? How do the americans treat those prisioners?
Before anyone here shots me, :oops: I´m just asking this question because there´s a lot of talking about the horrible conditions and ill-treatment dispensed to those prisioners, altough USA is well-known for the extreme care and respect that they treated the german and the japanese during WWII...

The reason no one is bringing that up is because it's pretty off topic for this thread.

My grandfather told me a lot of stories from the war. He was in Europe and was part of the Normandy invasion on D-Day. He's not alive anymore but I remember most of the stories. Some crazy stuff to be sure.

My dad was in the USN in ww2, on destroyer escorts fighting the Japanese, but he didn’t talk much about it when I was growing Most of the stories I head from him were the ones I overhead when him and buddies got together. I remember that right after Pearl Harbor his ship spent many weeks chasing phantom Japanese subs around the islands there. And his ship one time picked up some sailors that had suffered at the hands of the Japanese. But I remember him saying that bravest thing he did was crossing the ocean in a destroyer escort, as small as it is.
I just remember as a kid he would take my brother and I to fish off the beach, we would be there until the wee hours of morning. He didn’t catch a whole lot but he would just sit there drinking his beer and looking out over the surf. Hummmm wonder what he was thinking of?
Sorry a little bit of rattling on.

Not rattling on at all Ice
Treasure those memories mate
Thanx for sharing
All of you

As I'm too young to have stories of my own, I'm just relating ones that I liked from the various books I read. Here's another I liked:

"One day a group of prisoners [from the Galveston POW camp], dressed in their faded denim pants and jackets with a big white "P" on the back, were mowing and cleaning the grounds of the Army airfield. Across the road at the municipal golf course Dr. Edward Randall and friends were having a game of golf, and the doctor lobbed a ball over the fence into the airfield. "Das ball, das ball, bitte," he yelled at the prisoners, trying to remember a few German words. They looked at him, and one ran to pick up the errant ball. As he threw it back over the fence, the prisoner called, "Here it is, sir."

:rotfl: